CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The next morning, Duff found Adina by the lagoon tending to the fishing lines. His eye was swollen and purplish, and Adina wished she could feel some satisfaction that Mary Lou’s punch had been so effective, but she only felt the pain of betrayal.
“Adina. Can you just stop for a sec and listen to me?” he said.
“I’m working. You’ll have to deal.” She expertly repaired a section of the line that had been nibbled by fish.
“I’m sorry,” Duff said at last. “I never meant to hurt you.”
Adina allowed a small “ha!” She kept her focus on the line as she blinked back tears.
“I don’t blame you for hating me.”
“Gosh, it’s so nice to have your approval,” Adina growled.
Duff dug at the sand with a stick. “The producers asked us to keep personal blogs to attract a fan base. Sinjin was the most popular, of course. I couldn’t think of anything to say. I mean, I’m just a bloke on a boat trying to figure out who I am and what I want to do.” He offered a small, apologetic shrug. “Anyway, I was reading about Casanova, and something clicked. I settled on that persona and started blogging about my supposed conquests. I was getting more hits a day than the other chaps, and the producers were talking spin-off show and … I just didn’t know how to stop.” Duff waited for Adina to say something. When she was quiet, he said, “I’m really, really sorry. I’m a messed-up guy. But I do really like you, Adina. I didn’t lie about that part.”
Adina’s mind was tempted with flea-market promises: He’s only lost. Confused. Wounded. You could save him. Change him. Make him. It would hurt a little. Maybe a lot. And then he would love you forever. And his love would prove your lovability. She remembered what her mother said the day Johnny, husband #3, moved the rest of his guitar collection into the rented U-Haul and drove it away to live with a Hooters waitress named Fragile. Her mother had curled her hair and put on a fresh coat of lipstick and stood on the porch, watching the U-Haul’s shadow clawing along the street. Adina waited for her mother to throw her coffee cup. Call him a bastard. Do a little dance. Instead, she said softly, “What’s wrong with me?” Adina had hated her mother for saying that. And she hated that some part of her asked the same thing now.
Don’t cry, she told herself, and yanked hard on the fishing line, stumbling as she dislodged whatever was stuck.
She screamed as the bloated body washed toward her.
“Something’s not right on this island,” Sinjin said between kisses, and Petra grew quiet for a moment.
“Was that a double entendre?”
“No, luv. I’m serious. That girl — the barmy one …”
“Taylor.”
“Yeah. Ahmed said she was wearing a man’s black shirt. Where did she get it?”
“Maybe it was in her luggage all along?” Petra said, but she didn’t really believe it.
Sinjin mulled it over. “Say, you’re not, like, a competing show designed to give our show a hard time? Like a Survivor Versus Survivor concept? And you’re the surprise we have to figure out. Like you’re really the Sirens who lure us off course and we have to resist you.”
“Did you just make a reference to Greek literature?”
“Totally crushing on you in a Homeric way.”
Sinjin waggled his eyebrows. “I fancy a bit of the Homeric way.” Petra went in for a kiss and Sinjin stopped her lips with his fingers. “You’re sure you’re not some sort of creepy double agents connected with those black shirts?”
“Cross my heart and hope to die.”
“Give us a kiss and make an honest pirate of us,” Sinjin said.
“Oh my God! Adina just found a body,” Nicole said, racing by.
“A body!” Mary Lou said, her heart beating faster. Could it be Tane? Was that why she hadn’t seen him? She tried to put that thought out of her mind as she ran toward the lagoon with the others.
They dragged the body onto the beach and rolled him over.
He was wearing a black T-shirt. But other than that, there was no way to know who he was.